Long Beach cops liable in 2010 shooting death of Douglas Zerby

SANTA ANA -- After a day of deliberations, a jury Thursday found Long Beach police officers violated the civil rights of a man who was shot and killed without warning in 2010, awarding his family $6.5 million in damages.

Officers Jeffrey Shurtleff and Victor Ortiz were found liable in the death of Douglas Zerby, 35, who was killed without warning as he sat on the stoop of a friend's apartment playing with a pistol-grip hose nozzle that police mistook for a gun.

In a unanimous verdict in federal civil court, the jury of women and two men found not only that the officers violated Zerby's 4th Amendment Constitutional rights, but that they committed a battery on Zerby and were negligent.

Attorneys for the Zerby family had asked for $21.5 million in damages, and received about a third of that. Zerby's son, River, was awarded $3.5 million, his father, Mark, $2 million, and his mother, Pam Amici, $1 million.

About a dozen Zerby family members and supporters sobbed in the courtroom as the court clerk read the verdict. Afterward, Zerby's older sister Eden Marie Biele said the case was about much larger issues than just her brother.

She said the verdict was "a victory not only for our family but for every citizen in the United States. My brother's 4th Amendment rights were violated and a jury of our peers and fellow citizens saw that. "

Biele and plaintiffs' attorneys said Zerby could have been anyone and deserved better than to be callously gunned down without police identifying themselves or issuing a warning.

She also said the verdict brings relief to a family that feels Zerby was defamed and besmirched by both city officials and the media.

"This is a validation for us," she said. "It's exactly what we said all along. "

Amici said she planned to attend a Long Beach City Council meeting to talk about the verdict and asked that Shurtleff and Ortiz lose their badges.

The city, meanwhile, has not said whether it will appeal.

Family members said the monetary awards were irrelevant and would go to providing for Zerby's son.

Dale Galipo, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, who represented Zerby's son and mother, said he was pleased with the verdict and to see the reactions of the Zerby family as they hugged, celebrated and cried in the hallway.

"Federal court is tricky because you need a unanimous verdict," said Galipo, who in May will go to trial in the case of a Downey man shot in the back by police there.

Galipo said seeing the jury come down on the family's side on every issue "was a great victory for the plaintiffs. This was a thoughtful and courageous jury. "

Brian Claypool, an attorney who has been with the Zerby family from the outset, saw large implications in the verdict, saying it was much bigger than Zerby.

"This to me is a public confirmation of the fact that the Long Beach Police Department was unjustified, reckless and careless in failing to give Doug a command," Claypool said. "The use of deadly force was categorically excessive, unjust and unreasonable. "

Claypool said from the beginning the case resonated with him because Zerby could have been anyone. He had not committed a crime, was unarmed, was never a threat to anyone and was killed probably without ever knowing he was being watched.

The city has the opportunity to appeal the verdict or reach a settlement, although their final decision remains to be seen.

Biele said her family is now going to urge that Shurtleff and Ortiz face criminal prosecution. She said the family is not anti-police nor anti-Long Beach, but that they needed to take a stand against what she feels is a rising problem of police violence.

"We love Long Beach, but that doesn't make this excusable," she said.

Although Galipo supports the family, he said in this case he was not sure the officers' actions rose to the level of homicide.

Amici said it was a bittersweet day for her.

"All I ever wanted is to reverse time and bring my son back," she said.

The Zerby case began in December 2010 when Ortiz and Shurtleff responded to a 911 call reporting a man with a "small six-shooter" in an Ocean Boulevard courtyard.

Within eight minutes of the call, Zerby was dead.

Both sides agreed Zerby was unarmed. They also agreed that Zerby was highly intoxicated at the time and that no warning was issued before the fatal volley of gunfire erupted.

It is there that opinions diverge.

The plaintiffs say there was absolutely no reason for the shooting as officers had good cover, reasonable containment and at the very least had the opportunity to warn Zerby to drop the object in his hand.

"Amazingly they didn't give him any commands until after he stopped breathing," plaintiffs' attorney Galipo said. "We have to expect better out of police, we really do. We don't want innocent people being killed. "

Instead, according to attorney Garo Mardirossian, the officers engaged in a "rush to judgment" possibly ignited by a misfire and resulting in a contagious hail of gunfire that left Zerby dead.

Zerby suffered four fatal wounds from handgun and shotgun fire.

The city's defense team described a highly tense and rapidly evolving situation with an unknown gunman on the loose in a congested area filled with beach-goers and area residents. All who saw the nozzle agreed it looked like a gun and feared Zerby might fire or get loose in the neighborhood.

According to Monte Machit, deputy city attorney for Long Beach, police did not know whether Zerby was lying in wait, or if he had already left dead bodies in an upstairs apartment he was visiting.

"I'm not going to tell you this is not a tragic series of events, of course it was tragic," Machit said. But he insisted it was consistent with police training, tactics and policies.

According to the police account, the officers only fired when Zerby became alerted either to a police siren or the racking of a shotgun and suddenly brought his hands up into a firing position, aiming directly at Ortiz, who was watching Zerby from inside a nearby apartment.

It was only then, according to the defense, that Shurtleff had to make "a split-second decision" to protect the life of fellow officers.

"Police are human beings," Machit said. "We're not talking about super heroes. They're doing the best they can do under very difficult circumstances. "

The officers were cleared in reviews by both the LBPD and the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, but Zerby's family pressed forward with the civil case.